Second Time the Charm: May Bees Drop 'Saint-Denis'

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Dutch indies return with album helmed by Guided By Voices producer Todd Tobias.

Winchester, VA (PRWEB)September 27, 2011

U.S. independent label Wampus Multimedia introduces 'Saint-Denis,' the sophomore release from Dutch candy-apple-thrash band The May Bees.

May Bees leader Gregory Orange pays about as much attention to the expectations of the popular music world as a math professor might to an episode of 'American Idol.' As the band's founder, songwriter, and conceptual generator, he crafts a concoction that knows no true antecedent. Like Kurt Cobain, Thurston Moore, and Black Francis before him, he is an unclassifiable stylist bent on refraction and reinvention.

Following 2007’s 'Drop Little Boy,' 'Saint-Denis' documents an artistic zenith for Orange. Recorded and produced by Todd Tobias (Guided by Voices, Robert Pollard, Circus Devils), 'Saint-Denis' updates the classic rock vocabulary, blending organically derived guitars and drums with modernist textures and otherworldly vocals.

Orange describes the genesis of 'Saint-Denis' as an epiphany he had while walking down the Montreal rue that serves as the record’s namesake (and on which he wrote the album’s songs). “Imagine this busy street,” he says, “with people walking, driving, shopping, drinking, talking, staring… I watched it for hours and hours, and I saw a sort of beauty in it. We are all alone in the world, trying to make something of our lives. And it’s tragic when we struggle and fail. It struck me that writing songs was a method to cope with that, a method to make this tragedy beautiful in a way.”

Comprised of singer-guitarist Orange, longtime drummer Marzj, bassist Patrick Vetkamp, and guitarist Marcus, The May Bees are touring The Netherlands with an eye on follow-up dates throughout Europe as well as in Canada and the United States. Armed with their most affecting work to date, they are encountering a global indie-music audience eager to be moved by something more passionate and profound than irony — an audience looking, maybe, for a little jagged beauty.

'Saint-Denis' joins a Wampus Multimedia roster that includes recent and imminent releases from Arms of Kismet, The Crowd Scene, tvfordogs, the matthew show, Big Bus Dream, Johnny J Blair, and Kowtow Popof, as well as popular tributes to Jonathan Richman, Lou Reed, and Warren Zevon.

Wampus Multimedia is an independent media label run by artists, for artists. Its credo is simple: to introduce the world to bold content rendered by visionary artists. It is home to a growing roster from a variety of genres, including pop, AAA, Americana, alternative, ambient, blues, and folk.

'Saint-Denis' is available at Amazon, CD Baby, iTunes, and many other outlets.